Harvest Lessons: Local Winery Hosts International Interns

By Gabe Saglie(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on November 20, 2011)

Vanessa Guardia and Romina Regules have a lot in
common. The budding winemakers both work
in the wine-buzz region of Mendoza in their native Argentina. And, coincidentally, both are working on the
same thesis toward their enology degrees, on winemaking’s carbon footprint and
environmental impacts. But the two have
just recently become friends.

And that’s because the two women have something else in
common: they are wrapping up their first harvest internship at Lucas &
Lewellen Winery in Buellton. They met
just a few days before flying north for the summer, just before grape picking
in Santa Barbara County got underway.
And now they, along with three other international winemakers, have new
friendships, and plenty of new know-how, under their belts.

Lucas & Lewellen hosts interns every harvest. The paid positions run about four months, to
coincide with harvest season from beginning to end. Winemaker Megan McGrath Gates, who’s been in
charge of selecting interns for the last five years, finds prospects through an
agricultural exchange program run by the state.
“We screen them digitally first, online, and then narrow them down to
people with skills we’d be interested in,” she says. “I require they either have some wine
education or at least some hands-on experience.
I want people who show initiative and real interest in wine.”

This year, McGrath Gates picked five candidates with
impressive global reach. Joining Guardia
and Regules for the 2011 harvest are Umberto Gaia from Italy’s Piedmont region,
Gustavo Assandri from Uruguay and Mehul Patel from India. The five are paid a stipend – they get
time-and-a-half if they work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week –
and are hosted as a group in a private home that’s walking distance from the
winery on East Street. “They love it
because it’s a family setting under one roof, with home cooking, Internet
access and TV,” says McGrath Gates.

The workload is steady, often six days a week, based on the
volume of grapes that are picked and the day-to-day demands inside the winery.

“My goal was to basically gain more experience and learn new
techniques to take back home,” says Regules, 26, also in Spanish. “And, of course, to learn new cultures and to
better my English.” She admits that most
Argentinians think Napa when they think California wine, and that zinfandel,
California’s purported native variety, has notoriety. “But I have been very surprised by the
variety of wines here,” she declares.
“In Mendoza, most wineries focus on two, three, maybe four
varietals. But here we’ve been working
with more than 20, which is great because we’re exposed to grapes we never get
to work with.”

Truth be told, Lucas & Lewellen, which was co-founded by
pioneering viticulturist Louie Lucas, is one of Santa Barbara County’s most
prolific producers. The company grows some
24 grape varieties on three estate vineyards in Santa Maria, Los Alamos and the
Santa Ynez Valley. It also sells grapes
to myriad wine producers throughout California.
“We made less of our own wine this year because Louis sold more fruit to
other wineries, especially up north where yields were dramatically down this
year,” says McGrath Gates. “Our own
yields were down, too, but not nearly as much.”

For Guardia, seeing the differences in the malbec produced
by Lucas & Lewellen and that made in Argentina has been a fascinating
lesson. The Bordeaux grape is readily
considered Argentina’s flagship variety.
“The softness of the tannins is similar, but here it tends to be silkier
and the color is so deep and intense,” she says.

Guardia also noticed some distinction in the way wine is
made. “In Argentina, we make wine in
large quantities,” she says. “But here,
they work a lot in smaller batches, and each is different and unique, often
with different alcohol and acidity levels.”

Regules adds, “To work with small batches at a time is
great, because you can closely see the evolution of your wine.”

It hasn’t been all work, of course. The group has gotten to know their temporary
community well. “Everybody has been so
kind and giving,” Regules says. And
they’ve done their fair share of travel, visiting tourist hot spots like the
Grand Canyon and Hollywood. “Las Vegas
was a lot different than Solvang,” Guardia says with a laugh. For her and Regules, this was their first
visit to the United States.

“For me, this has been an amazing opportunity both
professionally and personally,” adds Guardia.
“We all formed friendships, talked about life in our respective
countries, shared stories and expanded our experience in so many ways.”

The experience is always enlightening for McGrath Gates,
too. “I ask them about techniques they’re
using back home all the time,” she says, but speaks most enthusiastically about
the relationships she’s forged. “I
recently visited one of our former interns from Portugal,” she says, “and she
took us all over Lisbon, introduced us to these amazing cheeses and Ports, and
to all these cultural treasures.”

Methodology can change, after all, but friendships can last
long.

This year’s internship officially ends on Tuesday. But Guardia and Regules are not planning on
heading back home until early December.
“We’re still hoping to visit Miami,” they echo each other with a laugh.

About Me

Welcome to the online home of Gabe Saglie. Gabe is Senior Editor for Travelzoo and a respected travel contributor for dozens of TV news programs and national shows. Gabe is also a longtime wine and food writer based in Santa Barbara, California, where he lives with his wife, two boys and daughter.